It was clear there was no way to break her curse in the confines of Barrow. At least outside its hold, she might be able to find an answer. Or ask the witch to help her.
When Risa was younger, she’d hoped a prince would be the one to rescue her, or a fairy godmother would float down from the rain clouds and wash away her Badness. Instead, it was a decrepit old witch collecting payment for a favor offered seventeen years earlier. Still, it was a type of freedom all the same.
“Well?” Brunhilda tapped the end of her walking stick against the ground, impatient.
Turning back to the witch, Risa placed her hands on her hips and frowned. Yes, her future was already decided, but that didn’t mean she had to make things easy.
“You didn’t even bring me a gift on my birthday.”
“Excuse me?”
“If you’re going to come here making demands, the least you can do is bring me a birthday present.”
“I already gave you a gift.” Brunhilda lifted her stick and pointed it at Risa’s chest. “And I can take it back.”
Risa glanced down to brush away some invisible dirt from her thighs. “You can’ttake backgifts.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, a heavy weight overcame her. She fell to her knees, unable to catch her breath, every bone in her body threatening to break under the immense pressure. She scratched at the ground, fingernails clawing at the caked earth, scrabbling for purchase in a world that might disappear beneath her. A din like rain rose in her ears with a roar.
“Stop!” Her mother’s voice sounded far away. “You’re hurting her!”
It was over in moments. Risa lay sprawled and gasping for air.
Life. Brunhilda had given her life.
Ma was at her side to help lift her onto trembling legs. Brunhilda observed them with the same disinterest she might have for a bug, picking leaves from her drab, moth-eaten clothes and flicking them aside.
“Now, come along.” The witch glanced toward the heavens. “I haven’t got all day.”
CHAPTER TWOIn Which a Girl Walks Through the (Cursed) Woods
Brunhilda strode through the town with an ease that belied her age. There was no one on the winding streets, and Risa’s and Brunhilda’s steps echoed on the smooth cobblestones. Every home they passed appeared abandoned, their inhabitants hiding from Risa and the Bad Day in its entirety.
The town square was empty save for a few birds that perched on a stone fountain chirping bright, discordant tones. After centuries of relentless rain, the carved face of the fountain’s statue had eroded, leaving behind a shapeless figure standing vigil over a pool that no longer worked and jutted out like a sore thumb. Usually, the gas lamps at each corner of the square were lit with a hazy orange glow. Today, the flames were snuffed out.
There were no girls beneath slick black umbrellas gatheringaround the fountain, no boys preening at their watery reflections in the pool, exchanging whatever morsels of gossip had made their way to town with the traveling merchants who dared to trek through the woods. No one discussing who married whom, which couples called it quits, or which Kheadish princes remained single. Sometimes, when there wasn’t enough royal gossip or when Risa’s bad luck had caused only minor catastrophes that week, the whispers would turn to the rumored bandits on the borders between Kheadon and its neighboring kingdoms, or to the Anti-Airship Federation’s newest demands for the floating sovereign nation of San Cirilo, or to the dozens of witches surely living in the Bosque.
She could imagine what tomorrow’s gossip would be. Risa, taken away by one of those witches from the forest, finally freeing Barrow from her cursed clutches.
Despite the year spent thinking about her future as a witch’s tall, beautiful, and stubborn captive, she hadn’t gone so far as to imagine what her new life might bring. She figured it would entail a lot of cleaning the witch’s hovel and picking herbs for witchy brews.
But as the trees of the Bosque loomed closer, panic gathered in her throat.
Sure, she had once braved the borders at age ten in an attempt to break her curse, but it was different now that she knew she would have to venture deeper into its unmapped depths. Few who traversed it managed to escape, and only if they crossed it in daylight did they have a chance. The trees kept most of the world from stepping into Barrow, kept airships and magic and strangers on the other side.
At least in Barrow she knew what tomorrow would bring. The safety of routine was comforting. Awaking to the sound of rain.Letting her mother drone on about the perils that awaited her outside their front door, or her father about the town’s treasury. Ignoring the way townspeople pointed as she passed, black umbrella in hand.
At least those were storms she knew how to weather.
But on the other side of the Bosque waited a world she didn’t know.
She should have said goodbye. Should have hugged her parents. Should have crossed the line she had drawn between them. Should have told them that she loved—
“I had no choice.” Brunhilda’s voice cut through Risa’s alarm. Then she muttered under her breath so low that Risa almost missed it, “Lousy agreements. I should stop making them.”
Risa drew her brows together at the words.
“Are you going to make me the child bride of an evil king?” she asked. Her nerves fluttered in her stomach. She’d spent so long imagining a future running the errands of a witch that she hadn’t thought of other possible scenarios.
